The political status of the people of Kume Village
Most of the 36 people with the surname given in the early Ming Dynasty were "boat workers", that is, "boat workers", that is, "Zhuoshui" and "fire chief", that is, captains, mainly to assist Ryukyu in solving the problem of maritime communication between China and Ryukyu for tribute envoys and tributary ships. And these boat-minded immigrants and their descendants later almost took up the job of "general affairs".
On the one hand, because they knew Chinese, and on the other hand, it can be said that the Ryukyu king used them especially for the needs of tributary trade.
1. The relationship between the people of Kume Village and the Ryukyu royal government
As mentioned earlier, the architecture and lifestyle of Kume Village still had strong Chinese characteristics in the early days, and the early Kume Village people not only maintained their original characteristics in living habits, but also tried to be independent in participating in Ryukyu politics.
In 1382, after the Ming Dynasty detected the struggle of the Three Mountains, it sent emissaries to issue edicts to the Three Mountains respectively to show peace, which was to recognize the tribute of the Three Mountains from the standpoint of adhering to the tributary and canonization system. Therefore, the people of Kume Village, who were sent by the Ming Dynasty in the name of facilitating the exchange of tribute envoys, should also start from this position and engage in trade activities on the basis of keeping a certain distance from Sanshan.
Kume Village has a relationship with Nakayama and Shannan, and many envoys have transferred from Shannan to Nakayama or from Nakayama to Shannan. For example, Li Jie was an official student in Shannan in 1405, but in 1425 he served as a tribute to Zhongshan. Liang Zhen was a tribute minister to King Shannan in 1429, and after the fall of Shannan, he became an interpreter for the Zhongshan Dynasty in 1431.
In addition, Cheng Fu and Wang Mao, the attendants of the Zhongshan state, did not resign or change their positions after experiencing the Ryukyu internal tongue and Shang Bazhi to gain the Zhongshan regime, and still served as attendants, assisting Si Shao and King Shang Ba Zhi. It can be seen that they are not subordinate to any of the three mountains, and they do not want to be involved in the political struggle of the Ryukyus.
Since Shangbashi entered the historical stage, Ryukyu began to move from the Three Mountains Period to the road of unifying royal power. During the First Shō dynasty (1405-1469) and the second Shō dynasty (1469-1879), the cohesion of the Ryukyu royal government gradually increased from Shurijo Castle as a base.
Shang Ba Zhi not only actively improved the official position system and the power class, so that all the bureaus were organized on the basis of the royal power, but also set up a prison in Shanbei to suppress those who left the island.
It can be seen that Shampazhi intended to strengthen local rule and increase the authority of his royal power. However, in terms of foreign relations, when Shangbashi established the new Ryukyu Kingdom and unified Ryukyu, he still maintained Zhongshan's original foreign relations. In the process, the tributary trade of Nakaryu did not appear to have changed on the surface, even though the relationship between Shangbashi and the Kume villagers, who were in charge of the tribute, continued smoothly.
The Kume people were indispensable for maintaining Ryukyu's tributary trade with China, and the Shōbashi regime also needed to maintain good relations with them. This is one of the reasons why the people of Kume Village, who held official positions in the Ryukyu during the Miyama period, could still hold their original positions in the new kingdom after unification.
It was a land given by the Ryukyu king to the royal ministers. On November 8, 1547, Liang Xian, a native of Kume Village, was appointed as the head of the Nishiharama Kirito Valley, and was given the land of mining, followed by Cai Yun (読谷 Yamama Kiriya Ryojito) and Jin Seo (Mawa Shima Kirito) were appointed to his posts.
The Kume people, who specialized in the tributary trade, were given land, which also meant that the relationship between the Kume people and the Ryukyu royal government deepened, and the life of the Kume village people was tied to the rise and fall of the Ryukyu Kingdom.
Second, the emergence of the Kume village clans
From Chen Longgui's research on the "Jin Family Tree" and the "Chen Family Tree", it was found that there were two people who had been the "Jin Family Tree". The fourth emperor Jin Ding served as the chief of fire from 1536 to 1537, and in 1541 he was transferred to the post of governor of the capital. The ninth Jin Shiqi was appointed fire chief in the same year, and general affairs two years later.
In the "Chen Family Tree", nine people have served as fire chiefs successively, and four people who are later in their lives have served as fire chiefs. They served as fire chiefs and ministers for the following hours:
Chen Jizhang served as the fire chief four times in 1541~1549, and as a general secretary in 1554;
Chen Rong served as fire chief in 1588 and 1591, and general affairs in 1593;
Chen Ying was appointed fire chief in 1593 and general secretary in 1600;
Chen Hua became the chief of fire in 1604 and the general secretary in 1610.
In addition, except for Jin Shiio, who served as a fire chief after entering the Qing Dynasty, the rest were fire chiefs who served in the Ming Dynasty, and most of them were concentrated before the middle of the Wanli Ming Dynasty (seventeenth century).
From the above information, it is not difficult to deduce that the positions held by the people of Kume Village in Ryukyu gradually upgraded from "fire chief" and "sushui" to "general affairs" and even "shoji daifu" and "choshi" and other clerical positions, and the clan of Kume village was formed.
The total surnames of the people of Kume Village in the Ming Dynasty are around the species, of which the surnames with the largest number of experienced translators can be listed as follows, Cai, Liang, Zheng, Jin, and Lin. These surnames often had their children hold important positions such as zhengyi doctor and long history, and were very important surnames in the Ming Dynasty.
The Japanese scholar Kei Ryunosuke said in his treatise that during the Hongwu period of the early Ming Dynasty, a group of Chinese settled in Ryukyu as envoys and immigrants, with the purpose of assisting the Ryukyu Kingdom in dealing with tributary relations between the Chinese and Ryukyu kingdoms, and they formed various clans in Ryukyu, and these families living on Kume Island had different origins, but their patriarchs all held certain official positions in the royal palace.
In the 500-year tributary relationship between the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Kume village clan was valued by the Ryukyu king in the position of "general affairs". The Kume clan started with the post of "general secretary", which was also the main position of most of the Kume clan in Ryukyu in the early days. And after they become generals, there is an opportunity to continue to improve.
A similar content can be seen in the records of the Kume family tree, and the descendants of Kume Village may become generals after becoming Wakashucai and Xiucai. However, due to geographical limitations, most of these new generals will come to China to continue their studies, and then return to Ryukyu to take up important positions.
Before Samopan invaded Ryukyu in 1609, the line between the Ryukyu clan and the common people was not obvious, and their identities were often changed.
In the process of resisting Satsuma's invasion, in order to gather strength to compete with the samurai forces that had infiltrated Hon, Ryukyu gradually formed a monchu, and the position of the royal government was fixed, and the people who held the position demanded succession by blood in order to maintain power, and gradually changed the position of the royal government to be inherited from generation to generation, and the privileged class was created in the Shuri and Naha regions under the direct administration of the Ryukyu royal government. This is also known as the door-in-door system.
The Ryukyu Kingdom established the Genealogy (the organ used by the royal palace to edit and manage the genealogy of the Shi clan) in this year, and subsequently improved the identity system, so that all the Shi clan had a family tree, and those who did not have a genealogy were the common people.
The Shimon are basically concentrated in the Shuri-Naha metropolitan area, and are further divided into Shuri, Naha, Tomari, and Kume systems according to the family register. The genealogy of the three systems of Suri, Naha, and Po is written in the same format, with their own fixed clan names and name multipliers, while the monkoji of the Kume line do not have a name multiplier. Kume Mon can be said to represent the influence of the Kume people in the Ryukyu Kingdom.
Unlike the Shuri, Naha, and Shi clans, who formed the core of the tributary trade, the Kume people formed a special official organization responsible for trade and education in Chinese culture such as the Chinese language.
Third, the improvement of the status of the people of Kume Village
When the people of Kume were first ordered to come to Ryukyu, the Ryukyu royal palace showed respect for the Ming Dynasty and gave a series of preferential treatment when relocating the people of Kume Village. While the invasion of the Nissama clan and the reorganization of the Ryukyu Kingdom and the gradual independence of the Ryukyu Domain, they paid more attention to the people of Kume Village, not only recruiting people from Naha Shuri to supplement the population of Kume Village, but also giving preferential treatment to the people of Kume Village in terms of political and economic aspects.
(1) Economic aspects
First of all, in terms of land use in Kume Village, Kume Village is strategically located between the market and the port, which is not only convenient for transportation, but also easy for boats to berth. The Ryukyu royal government provided free land tax for the people of Kume village, and at that time, only the privileged classes of the Ryukyu kingdom in Shuri, Naha, and Hira were exempt from paying taxes to the royal government.
Secondly, in the distribution of rice, local residents of Ryukyu could only receive rice after becoming officials, but until 1729, people in Kume villagers who reached the age of fourteen could receive rice. In the Qing Dynasty, the Kume village clan could receive "support rice" as long as they became "Ruoxiucai", and they could also receive "support rice".
"Supporting rice" is a special favor received by the Kume village clan compared to other clans. When a clan in Kume takes up a position, in addition to receiving a salut, they can also receive a subsidy called support rice corresponding to their position, while the clan in areas such as Shurito or Naha can only receive a saluta corresponding to their position.
(2) Political status
According to the tradition of the Ryukyu Kingdom, only the clans of Shuri, Naha, and Habara were allowed to serve as officials, and the Kume people were initially only responsible for tributary affairs in the post of Nagashi, and later entered the political bureaucracy of the Ryukyu royal government.
Before 1482, the positions of Kume Village were from the highest to the lowest level of Zijin Daifu, Shoki Daifu, Nakai Daifu, Dutongshi and Tongshi 5th rank, and since the return of the first Kume Village officials and students from China, Kume Village people have held higher official positions, not only responsible for tributary affairs, but also promoted to the third chief official and even become the minister of state.
Under the king of the Ryukyu Kingdom there was a regent, and under the regent there were three prime ministers, called "three chiefs" (i.e., legal officials). Regent positions were often unfilled and useless, so it was the three commanders who actually held the power of the country.
When the village was large, there were many people engaged in maritime trade, and then for various reasons, the navigation technicians had no choice but to leave, and the remaining villagers also changed jobs one after another, and did not trade. They hoped to break through regional discrimination and create a third chief, and Zheng Jiong's appointment as the third division official represented the beginning of the rise of the Kume people on the Ryukyu political scene.
From the records in "Qiuyang" and "Zheng's Family Tree", it can be confirmed that Zheng Jiong's appointment was confirmed. Zheng Jiong, known as Lishan, went to China in 1565 to study at the Guozijian of Nanjing, and returned to China in 1572. He first set up a museum in the Tianfei Palace, and in 1574 he was appointed as the general secretary of the capital, and then promoted to Zijin Dafu, the regent of Shishi, in 1579 he managed the Tang Rongsi, and in 1606 he was appointed as the third commander.
Before Zheng Jiong was promoted to the third rank of Yipin in 1606, the highest person from Kume Village had only served as a councilor. On the one hand, this was due to the decline of Kume Village's power at that time, and on the other hand, it was also related to the fact that Kume Village's independence was not integrated into the Ryukyu tradition. Before and after the Battle of Saleu, Xie Ming's side was the main battle faction, but the witch side had the opposite opinion with him.
In ancient Ryukyu, traditional women's rights were extremely high, and Ryukyu was ostensibly a Confucian state canonized by the Ming Dynasty, but the influence of witch organizations was so entrenched that no national policy could ignore the opinions of these psychic women. Although the witches' power declined slightly during the reign of King Shojin (1477-1526) due to the fear of religious power overriding politics, the influence over the Ryukyu Kingdom remained.
And because he was born in Kume Village, which had no connection with the Ryukyu tradition, Xie Na's biggest weakness was that he had almost no influence on the witch organization. After the Battle of Salyu, the local people of Ryukyu admired Zheng Jiong for his deeds against the enemy, and then their acceptance of the people of Kume Village deepened.
If an official from Kume Village served as a tribute envoy, he would naturally be promoted to the rank of chief minister, because the imperial court routinely gave a purple crown to wear on the tribute envoy. The Ryukyu royal palace began to be restructured after the Salyu War, and the chief doctor was of the fourth rank in the ranks, while the local officials of the Ryukyu were only allowed to wear purple crowns from the second rank and above.
In addition, the Ryukyu Kingdom established the capital at Shuri, after the unification of the three mountains by Shōbashi, and after that, Shuri gradually formed seven major families, who only married with the royal family or intermarried within the seven major families, excluded other clans, and controlled the selection of the magistrate and purple gold official for a long time. And Cai Wen, a native of Kume Village, was appointed as the third commander during the reign of King Shangjing, and King Shangjing married the princess to Cai Wen's son, indicating that the status of the Kume village people rose to the same level as the seven major families of Shuri.
Kume villagers' overseas trade with Ryukyu
As an island nation, Ryukyu's economy depended mainly on foreign trade by sea. Due to the sea ban policy implemented by China's Ming Dynasty, not only those countries outside the Chinese tributary system cannot trade with China, but some Southeast Asian tributary countries that can only pay tribute for two years, or even one tribute for three years, also need a third-party country to provide them with a platform for exchange and trade with Chinese goods.
Ryukyu, on the other hand, relied on the seafaring technicians and ships provided by the Ming Dynasty to rapidly develop its overseas trade, and it could contact the local and dynasty X in the north, and trade in Southeast Asian countries when it went south, transporting tea, porcelain and other items obtained from China to Southeast Asian countries for sale, and obtaining huge profits.
1. Ryukyu's tributary trade with China
Due to the economic benefits brought to the Ryukyu Kingdom by the Sino-Ryukyu tributary trade, the Ryukyu side attached great importance to relations with China, in addition to frequent tribute, the Ryukyu side sent ships to China under various names such as receiving tribute, making up tribute, requesting seals, various celebrations (such as celebrating New Year's Day, canonizing the crown prince, the birthday of the Son of Heaven, etc.) and the funeral of the Ryukyu king, asking for seals, welcoming seals, and thanking seals, in order to carry out more trade activities.
The Kume people were the main group of the Ryukyu tributary mission. During the Ming Dynasty, the officials sent by the Ryukyu Kingdom such as Shoyo Daifu, Changshi, and Tongshi were all from Kume Village. During the Qing Dynasty, the Ryukyu tribute delegation had a chief and deputy history, with the uncle of Shoshiyama (at that time the four surnames of Shurai, Xiang, Weng, Mao, and Ma) as the deputy envoy, and the deputy envoy was the main doctor (occasionally Zijin Daifu), that is, a native of Kume Village.
According to the list of tributes compiled by Wu Aihua, from the accession of Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty (1425) to 1872, the first year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty), Ryukyu sent a total of 181 missions, all of which were participated by Kume Village as tribute representatives, including 6 as general officials, 21 as long history, 7 as doctors, 68 as zhengyi doctors, 5 Zijin doctors (purple scarf officials), 31 ear and ear officials, and 45 envoys and attendants.
In addition to technicians such as boat workers, Kume Village people were responsible for writing various documents submitted by Ryukyu to China, from the documents presented by Ryukyu to China, from the invitations to Emperor Fu, to the messages to local administrative agencies, and the terms of transactions for trading partners.
These abilities of the Kume people were used not only in tributary trade, but also in Ryukyu's trade activities with other countries. 2. Trade between Ryukyu and Southeast Asia
Since Ryukyu established tributary relations with China in 1372 and became a member of the tributary canonization system, Ryukyu and Southeast Asian countries that are also members of the system have engaged in vigorous trade activities.
According to Takarakurayoshi's statistics, Ryukyu had close contacts with Siam, Java, Sumatra, Annam and other places in Southeast Asia in the 15th and 16th centuries, and these exchanges were mainly trade-oriented, but they also necessarily involved exchanges with the local ruling class. Between 1425 and 1570, the Ryukyu Kingdom sent 60 ships to Siam, and from 1463 to 1511, the Ryukyu Kingdom sent a trading ship to the Manraka Kingdom.
Under China's tributary system, all tributary states adopted Chinese characters as the main language of trade, and Ryukyu's exchanges with Southeast Asian countries were also transmitted in Chinese.
In addition to the construction, repair, sea access, translation, and writing of official documents submitted to various classes of the Ming Dynasty, Kume Village was also responsible for the writing and translation of documents to and from Ryukyu to Korea and Southeast Asian countries during the same period. Most of the people of Kume Village were from maritime backgrounds and moved to Ryukyu in order to carry out some private trade under the name of tributary trade, and they were familiar with trade affairs.
Therefore, in addition to being in charge of tributary trade between China and Ryukyu, the people of Kume Village were also sent to the Nanyang countries on behalf of the Ryukyu Kingdom to mediate trade affairs.
The role of the Kume people between Ryukyu and Southeast Asian countries can be inferred from genealogical records: in the Liang family tree, Liang Fu, Liang Zhongde, Liang Yi, Liang Qi, Liang Min, and Liang Bao people all went to Siam, Java and other places as general officials to buy sumu pepper and other ceremonial things for tribute.
Through the Sino-Ryukyu tributary trade and the maritime trade in Southeast Asia, Ryukyu developed greatly politically, economically and culturally, ushering in the first prosperous period in history, also known as the "Great Trading Dynasty" of Ryukyu.
Kumemura Yoryukyu Social Sinicization
In its frequent exchanges with China, the Ryukyu Kingdom gradually became attracted to and influenced by China's advanced culture. In the process of sinicizing Ryukyu society, the officials and students sent by Ryukyu can be said to have made a lot of contributions, and they have transferred various advanced knowledge and techniques learned in China back to Ryukyu, which has promoted the pace of sinicization of Ryukyu. Among the official students and diligent students sent, Kume villagers accounted for the vast majority.
1. Officers and students and diligent study
There are two ways for Ryukyuan people to study in China, one is "official students", who are sent by the Ryukyu government to study in China's Guozijian, and the Chinese government bears all the expenses of studying in China. The other is "diligent study", which comes to China at their own expense to learn the craft.
The dispatch of officials and students in the Ryukyu Kingdom can be roughly divided into three periods. In March 1391, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty sent his sons to the Chinese Guozijian to learn knowledge and etiquette, and in 1392, the nephew of Zhongshan King Chadu of Zhongshan and Renyue, the son of the zhaiguan (zhaiguan), was sent to Nanjing, China, to study at Guozijian, China, which was the first official and student dispatch in the history of Ryukyu.
From 1392 to 1412, Ryukyu sent a total of 40 officials and students to China on ten occasions, all of whom were the sons of Ryukyu royal families and village officials, which was the first stage of official and student dispatch.
However, after the illegal behavior of the Ryukyu envoy Cai Su was discovered, the seventy-year suspension of official and student dispatch was re-implemented in 1482, and from then until 1760, the Kume people almost monopolized the quota of official students studying in China. By 1802, the number of official students sent to China was divided equally, with two Kume and two from Shuri.
There is a reason why the people of Kume are so eager to send their descendants to China to study. Long-term settlement in Ryukyu caused the Kume people to face the crisis of slow assimilation by the Ryukyuan people. In terms of language communication, the common lingua franca of Ryukyu society is Ryukyuan, and the Chinese language mastered by the Kume villagers in the tributary trade did not help them in their daily life in Ryukyu.
Therefore, the status of the Chinese language is likely to be shaken in the second generation of Kume people, and the native language of the third generation of Kume Village was transferred to Ryukyuan. At present, there are still some words in the Hokkien dialect in the Ryukyuan language, which is the best proof of the language change of the Kume people. They were originally sent to Ryukyu because of their advanced navigation skills, and later they were reused by Ryukyu for mastering the translation and clerical skills necessary for overseas trade.
For a long time, the Chinese language can be said to be a clear dividing line between the Kume people and the Ryukyu locals, and the Kume people also regarded this as a unique expression of their identity, but over time, after they spread advanced Chinese culture to Ryukyu, they could not supplement more advanced Chinese civilization in time, and their descendants could not directly contact Chinese culture because they lived in the island country of Ryukyu for a long time, which will affect the role of Kume people as a bridge between China and Ryukyu.
After the Cai Chang incident, tribute trade in Ryukyu was restricted, and the people of Kume Village felt a crisis of separation from the motherland and advanced culture. Therefore, they hope to send Kumemura's children back to China to receive cultural and technical training in China in order to repair their dependence on the Ming Dynasty.
In the process of the regeneration of Kume Village in recent times, there were not only officials and students whose main purpose was to study Confucianism, but also those who followed the envoys to China by boat to study at their own expense. Since when the official students were reopened, the children of Kume Village and the children of Wang Fu were half, many people of Kume Village chose to study in Fuzhou as diligent students. The establishment of the diligent study dispatch system is also one of the reasons for the Kingdom's promotion of sinicization.
Diligent study entered the tributary team as a sailor and other technicians, and after arriving in China with the fleet, they decided for themselves what they wanted to learn, and it became customary for them to use the criteria of four when paying tribute and eight when receiving tribute. The name "diligent study" is only in the historical records of Ryukyu, and the Chinese records do not have the existence of the theory of diligent study.
Diligent study was not officially recognized as international students, so they did not go to Guozijian to study Confucian rites, but mainly studied calendar, feng shui, medical skills, science and even painting or Chinese music in Fuzhou, and then returned to Ryukyu with these techniques.
The number of years of diligent study and the time of return to China corresponded to their study status, and in 1731, the number of years of diligent study in China was as long as seven years. As long as they master a certain amount of knowledge and technology, they can return to their home countries to practice, and sometimes introduce complete sets of technical equipment into Ryukyu. The Chinese language ability of most of the diligent students is comparable to that of Tongshi, so it can be said that diligent study has the nature of being the implementer of the policy of promoting the sinicization of Ryukyu.
Second, the sinicization brought by the people of Kume Village
During the Ming Dynasty government, it actively established the Zongpu relationship between China and Ryukyu, and in the Qing Dynasty, during the Kang Qian Dynasty, it reached its peak through a series of measures such as economic "thick and thin", political "Huairou Yuanren" and cultural "Hongxuan Dehua", and the propaganda of Chinese culture in Ryukyu by the Kume villagers also influenced Ryukyu's imitation of the Chinese cultural system, thus prompting Ryukyu to accept the suzerainty of China's Qing Dynasty in social psychology.
The Shi clan from Kume Village played an important role in promoting the Sinicization of Ryukyu. The people of Kume not only dominated the tributary trade of Ryukyu, but also introduced various Chinese cultures into Ryukyu, prompting Ryukyu not only to imitate the Chinese official system when the country was reorganized, but also to accept Chinese ideas in education and other aspects.
(1) Political system
The Ryukyu Kingdom began to centralize after the unification of Shōbashi. According to the Ryukyu political system recorded by Huang Jingfu in "Zhongshan Seeing and Hearing Differences", the Ryukyu official system was modeled on the Ming Dynasty, and it was also divided into nine grades and eighteen levels.
The sinicization of Ryukyu society was inseparable from the various activities of the Kume people, especially after the reform of the Ryukyu official system, which gave them more opportunities to participate in the political decision-making of the Ryukyu royal government. Take Cai Wen as an example, Cai Wen, a native of Kume Village
After Chinese returning to China, he served as the "princely master" of the Ryukyu prince Shangjing, and then promoted to the rank of third commander, moved to Shurri, and assumed the post of Ryukyu Prime Minister for nearly 40 years.
At this time, the Ryukyu Kingdom was facing an economic crisis due to the economic suppression of the Satsuma Domain, coupled with natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and storms. After taking office, Cai Wen vigorously implemented various measures in Ryukyu based on what he had learned in China, including rationalizing the Ryukyu production economy, such as implementing the land cession system, expanding the cultivated land area, exempting skilled personnel from taxes, and planting trees, which contributed to the economic prosperity of Ryukyu.
(2) Education and culture
The people of Kume spread Chinese Confucianism and education in Ryukyu, and they established temples and schools that had a profound impact on Ryukyu education and academic thought.
The first is the learning of Chinese characters. Ryukyu is commonly spoken by Ryukyu locals, mixed with Japanese language from Japanese monks. In the beginning, the people of Kume only taught their children and grandchildren to learn Chinese in the village. Then, in order to promote exchanges between China and Ryukyu, the king of Ryukyu asked the princes of the royal palace to also learn Chinese from the people of Kume Village, and the national teachers were Cai Wenpu, Zheng Bingzhe, Cai Shichang and others.
Under this long-term influence, Chinese became the official upper language of Ryukyu, and the Ryukyu royal palace not only adopted the Chinese Zhengshuo, but also recorded the records and official documents and documents of the royal palace in Chinese.
Since most of the officials and students from Kume Village studied Confucian teachings in Guozijian in China, they would also choose Confucian classics as the main content of their teachings when they returned to China to teach Chinese. This to some extent contributed to the spread of Confucianism in Ryukyu.
In 1371, King Ryukyu Shojeong gave permission to the highest position in Kume Village, Tangying Si Kim Jongchun, to build a Confucius Temple, and the Confucius Temple at the head of the Izumisaki Bridge in Kume Village was completed. The four inscriptions on the central beam of the temple can also indicate that this was the center of early education in Ryukyu.
In 1678, Kume Village set up the positions of docent and instructor to teach and explain the Four Books and Five Classics, and after a long period of chaos in the transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties, the interrupted dispatch of officials and students was started again in 1686, and Kume Village selected Liang Chengjian and Cai Wenpu and other four people to study at Guozijian in Beijing. After returning to Japan, they served as instructors and instructors in Kume Village, making Kume Village the center of Ryukyu Confucian education.
Confucian education not only influenced the people of Kume Village, but also had a profound impact on the whole of Ryukyu. In 1707, while waiting in Fuzhou for ships returning to Ryukyu, Cheng Shunze, who served as the deputy envoy of the imperial court, engraved and brought back to Ryukyu the book "Six Commandments of Teachings", and the ideas of "filial piety to parents", "respect for superiors", and "harmony in the village" explained in this book were widely spread in Ryukyu.
In addition, the Myrondo that he founded in 1718 trained many Kume villagers full of Confucian colors, which also made the Confucian nature of officials from Kume village stronger.
After 1798, the Ryukyu king, at the suggestion of his national teacher Choi Shichang, also began to build Confucius temples and schools outside Kume Village, which are located in Shuri, Naha and other places, and are called kokugaku and township schools, and their teachers are all Kume villagers. All these have played a positive role in the spread of Chinese culture in Ryukyu.
One aspect of Ryukyu's influence on Chinese culture can be seen in ancestor worship habits and rituals. Following the ancestral worship customs of the people of Kume Village, Ryukyu successively established the Temple of the First King (a temple used to unify the sacrifice of the kings of the Ryukyu Dynasty), Enkakuji Temple (a temple that has been dedicated to the kings of the Ryukyu since the beginning of King Yuan), Tennoji Temple (a temple that sacrifices the father of the Ryukyu King but failed to become the king), and Tenkaiji Temple (a temple dedicated to the princess and the king's sister who married).
If the local family name is not surnamed, a temple or ancestral hall is built to enshrine the ancestral tablet. In 1757 (the 22nd year of Qianlong), the canonization envoy Quan Kui and the deputy envoy Zhou Huang introduced the canonical system of worship of the temple of Zhi Province to Ryukyu, and the king of Ryukyu ordered the Huotan to "worship as a ceremony" in turn, and imitated the state of Yan to perform the sacrifice of provincial animals before the ceremony, and sent the law official to sacrifice the temple of literature during the worship.
Although it was mainly Kume people and Ryukyu ministers who participated in the worship of the Temple of Literature later, the establishment of the Temple of Literature and the festival of the Temple of Literature had a certain impact on the local civilians of Ryukyu, and the temple of literature festival was also a way for the Ryukyu royal government to pay tribute to Chinese civilization.
(3) Customs and habits
Various Chinese customs and traditions were also introduced to Ryukyu from China by the Kume people, and the dragon boat race of the Dragon Boat Festival was widely popular among the Ryukyuan people. Every year on the fifth day of the ugly lunar month, Kume Village, Naha and Tomarimura each send a dragon boat, and the three parties race in the river near Suri, and the configuration and rules of the dragon boat are not much different from Chinese tradition.
Taking weddings as an example, the local people of Ryukyu originally only needed "men and women to be happy, they were matched", but they were influenced by the people of Kume Village, and gradually learned and adopted a series of procedures for Chinese weddings. Wedding customs vary from region to region, but a woman is hired as a matchmaker to broker marriage, and families that do not have a matchmaker are looked down upon.
However, the details of Ryukyu weddings differ from those in China, but the emphasis placed on matchmakers, the fact that both men and women can feast separately, and the death penalty for a husband who commits adultery after marriage are the same as those of traditional Chinese marriage. In addition, the Ryukyu Kingdom, from the royal family down to the common people, followed the Chinese tradition of "not marrying with the same surname".
The Ryukyuan people's concept of "surname" also began when the people of Kume moved in. The Ryukyuan people had previously only child names (nicknames) and no surnames and no names, but the Kume people came with their own surnames and would choose names for their descendants according to Chinese culture, and the Ryukyuan people began to value their roots and lineage.
In 1430, the Ryukyu King was given the surname "Shang" by the Ming Emperor, and then the Ryukyu King gave the surname to the nobles and ministers, requiring the Shi clan to revise the family tree, and in 1870 it was stipulated by law that every common family must have a surname. When choosing a name, in order to get a character with a good meaning, the Ryukyuan people often asked for help from the people of Kume Village. Since then, the people of Ryukyu have been like Chinese names, and they have called them "Tang names".
Since its formation, Kume Village has had a great influence on Ryukyu society in political, economic, cultural and other aspects, and with the continuous improvement of the status and influence of Kume Village in Ryukyu, Kume Village has gradually prospered and developed. However, Kume's road to prosperity was not all smooth sailing, and it also encountered several periods of decline during the period, and finally entered decline.